Game Altert: Cubs Randy Wells pitching a Pretty good game

For those of you that have WGN or the MLB Network you may want to check in on the game in progress between the Cubs and Braves. Rookie Randy Wells is having a special game.

Mystery Card of the Day

2008 Allen Ginter #WL12 World Leader Tarja Halonen, Finland

Anybody want to guess why this is card of the day?

Congratulations Jamie Moyer

2008 Topps #173 Jamie Moyer

Jamie Moyer earned his 250th career win today. Moyer has been a key player for the Phillies since arriving here late in 2006 and I am very happy to see Moyer reach the milestone. Some analysts may see the accomplishment as merely the accrual of wins over a long career. I choose to see it as the product of a smart and tenacious pitcher diligently working hard so that he can succeed every time he pitches.

If 250 wins isn't remarkable to you, check the Baseball-Reference list of active pitchers with the most career wins. Jamie is currently 2nd or 3rd depending on the status of Tom Glavine, and has a chance of being the active pitcher with most career wins if Randy Johnson retires prior to Moyer. Also notice that if admitted steroid abuser Andy Pettitte does not reach 250, the next pitcher to reach the milestone may be Tim Hudson and he still needs over 100 wins to get there.

To symbolize the 250 victories I have shrunk the Moyer card above and dupicated it 250 times.


If you click on the above and then imagine it six times as big that would be roughly the size of 250 Jamie Moyer Cards.

Faux Blaster - 2009 Topps Heritage

I have been on vacation for the past week and have taken a much needed break from all Net related activities. Thanks for your patience while I sort through some stuff and figure out what I was working on pre-vaca. Today I will open by posting a Faux Blaster. Basically my Faux blasters consist of $20 worth of Hobby Packs of a particular product.

This entry will focus on 2009 Topps Heritage. For my $20 I was able to pick up 6 packs of Heritage Hobby at a recent card show (ok it was a couple of months back - but who's counting).

Here are some of the highlights:


2009 Topps Heritage # BF1 Mickey Mantle Flashback (643 Foot Homer @ Tiger Stadium)
2009 Topps Heritage # 218 Ozzie Guillen
2009 Topps Heritage # 73 David Price Rookie Star
2009 Topps Heritage # 387 2008 World Series Game #3 (Carlos Ruiz)


2009 Topps Heritage # 319 Mike Aviles Topps All-Star Rookie
2009 Topps Heritage # 449 Nick Swisher (SP)
2009 Topps Heritage # 163 Johnny Damon
2009 Topps Heritage # 397 Chicago Cubs / Checklist

I am particularly fond of the Carlos Ruiz card of course and also the Johnny Damon base card. and here is why:
2009 Topps Heritage #163 Johnny Damon (B-side)
2008 Seattle Mariners @ New York Yankees game ticket 2008-05-03
(click to enlarge)

Check out the first season highlight on Damon's card. It occurred at the final Major League game I attended at Yankee Stadium last year. Pretty cool and I get to add it to my Phungo Games collection.

Overall the faux blaster was okay, I came out with a couple of stars but was a little short on inserts and was not lucky enough to pull any big hits - The Swisher card was my sole short print. I did get the vendor to throw in a 70 card grab bag box that contained some good stuff including a few Phillies and a couple of 08 Topps Finest.

And I also cheated just a bit on my Faux Blaster by picking up this buyback card that I spotted.

1960 Topps #47 Don Zimmer (2009 Topps Heritage Buy Back)

The Zimmer card went for $3 and was in a sheet of other buybacks of lesser known players. The card is in pretty good shape and for $3 I consider it a steal. Don Zimmer is not a Hall of Famer but surely doesn't deserve to be slumming with a bunch of commons.

So there you have it for $23.10 (includes a single of Ronny Paulino as a Phil out of a dime box also) I have picked 50 2009 Topps Heritage cards. The only Phil I recieved other than the Paulino was the WS Highlight of Ruiz. Including tax, a 2009 topps Heritage retail Blaster would typically run $21.59. For hobby I consider these 6 packs a little disappointing simply for being short on Phillies and running below expected on the insert ratios, but finding the Zimmer card makes up for any issues with the rest of the content.

I will be catching up on things the next week or so (and maybe sneaking out to a card show today) but should be back with a Phungo 5 sometime next week.

Phungo 5 with A Cardboard Problem

The Phils open interleague play as the first National League team to play in brand new Yankee Stadium. This also means the Phils are the first team to play in both new New York Ballparks. I was only at the original Yankee Stadium three times but was pretty excited to go there each time. This series should be an exciting one packed with star power and I am looking forward to it.

To represent the Yankees we have called upon Sooz, one of the lovely ladies who contributes to the blog "A Cardboard Problem". Sooz is also an award winning columnist for a New Jersey newspaper who is familiar with both the Phils and the Yanks.

1) If I am heading to Yankee Stadium what is my best way of getting a reasonably priced ticket?

Well, I'm lucky in the sense that I know a lot of people with season tickets, including Marie. So when I need a ticket I just hit up one of my buds and see if anyone can get me a ticket. I've never been shutout of a game before because of it. However, I hear the secondary market has been pretty decent. Although, as of right now (wednesday), Yankees have won five in a row, so the prices might be going up.

2) How has covering a baseball teamed influenced your collecting habits.

There are certain players I have met that have a bad attitude. It makes me never want to even look at their card. I had to talk myself into going to talk to Kouz when San Diego was in Philadelphia because if he was a jerk to me, I was going to look at my collection and cry all over it. Then, try to sell it.

More than that, I try not to let my personal life entire with my business life. I collect cards for fun. I work to make money (even though that's fun too).

3) How often do you tell Marie that she's crazy for trying to collect the entire Yankee Stadium Legacy set?

Hmm. I actually don't know if I ever called her crazy for that. I call her crazy for lots of other things though. Probably about twice a day.

4) That short RF seems to be custom made for the Phils power hitters - Over Under for Homers between the Yanks and Phils this wkend I set at 10.5. Do the two teams go over or under that? .

For three games? Over. I was just having this conversation yesterday. Ryan Howard might break the over/under by himself. Man, with him and Ibanez, who is red-hot right now, there could be a lot of homers in this series.

5) Does your life have anything in common with PJ Franklin other than your profession?

When the show My Boys first started, I had to watch my back to make sure someone wasn't following me. Our lives are amazingly similar, it's weird. I love sports, cover baseball (most of the time), play poker and have mostly male friends. I'm very casual and have a sailor's mouth (just as I suspect she would if the show wasn't on TBS). I am PJ. PJ is me.

I probably should award a 5 out of 5 right away, because the more I read the more I realize how much 10.5 is an underestimate for the number of homers in this series. But I will take the safe route and give Sooz a 4 of 4 pending the HR outcome of the series.

It is good to hear that Sooz has a PJ like lifestyle and I would love to hear some o the things that she calls Marie crazy for, but I guess we will have to catch that over at A Cardboard Problem. I would like to thanks Sooz for playing Phungo 5 and look forward to seeing all those Howard and Ibanez bombs this weekend.

For a look back at a previous Phungo 5 with Nachos Grande click here.

Harvey Haddix 12 perfect innings but no Perfect game - 50th anniversary

1965 Topps #67 Harvey Haddix

I just wanted to point out an interesting article I came across on the SABR website. The Clark County Historical Society in Springfield Ohio is marking the 50th anniversary of Harvey Haddix's near perfect 12 inning game which he ended up LOSING. The Historical Society event will have baseball themed concessions and feature several former baseball players including Bill Virdon and short time Phils Rick White.

On May 26th, 1959 Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings for the Pirates while facing the Milwaukee Braves. But Lew Burdette while giving up 12 hits did not allow any runs. In the 13th Burdetted pitched another scoreless inning. Unfortunately for Haddix an error a bunt and a double would cost him the perfect game, the shut out and the game.

Blog Bat Around: Why Blog - Because I am a Phanatic!

2009 Phungo #64 Phillie Phanatic

I really enjoy spectator sports especially baseball. Discussing Baseball, the Phillies, Great Games, and Great (or not so great) players is just an extension of ones love of the game. Collecting Cards similarly allows one to recapture the excitement of a carreer, game, great play, big Strikeout or Home Run.

Blogging about cards merges both activities - the colllecting cards and the talkin baseball. The Show and Tell aspect is weirdly awesome - I mean not many folks in my day to day life are going to give much thought to the coolness of a 1971 Topps card, an Autograph from a one time all-star like Gorman Thomas , or the novelty of a Chase Utley Jersey card. But if your a cardblogger you get it. You really enjoy finding them, finding out about them or seeing that somebody in the cardblog community adds another hit to their player collection. I enjoy reading about the cards and the tie-ins with baseball history.

As far as composing posts my favorite's are the Hall of Fame Thursday posts, I enjoy doing the research and finding out about players I knew little or nothing about. I would love to collect a card of every HOF player from their playing days, but realize this is well beyond a person in my budget range, but for the Honus Wagner's of the world there are plenty of interesting retro-cards. The Phungo HOF Thursday feature gives me the chance to focus this collection. It also allows me to exameine who these players were and reflect on their accomplishments both on and off the field.

The recent Phungo 5 feature has given me the chance to interact with Card Bloggers directly, and find out what is going on in their world. I really enjoy when we get involved in something completely off-topic - a faovrite band or an odd nuance. There is also a lot of fruitful discusions about the teams, prospects, Hype, and flameouts.

Running Spot the Sig! was a lot of fun and I was happy to see it get some modest support this winter. I think it is a good feature to keep folks in touch with baseball during the off-season and I expect to run a new STS! in the fall.

And Finally there is the card trading. This is one of the reasons I wanted to start blogging originally, but all my disorganization issues have kept me from trading as much as I would like. Ideally I would like to send out at least 1 package a month both to help build my collection and to meet other collectors. This by far has been the most fun part of my Phungo experience.

My favorite post is from a prior Blog Bat Around and is about my favorite baseball glove.